A Tale of Multiple Versions

The document that is widely circulated as the ‘Jaffe Memo’ is, strictly speaking, a table included in a full memorandum written by Frederick Jaffe to Bernard Berelson. The full memorandum summarizes and synthesizes a number of sources and policy proposals, which in turn are adequately summarized and synthesized into a single table. However, the extant copy of that table is hard to read in places, so someone, somewhere along the way, reproduced it.

The reproduction, however, had some flaws. The table wasn’t completely aligned, which didn’t allow accurate interpretation of the table. Also, the phrase “Chronic Depression” was in bold text, suggesting it was a new category, rather than one more idea worthy of consideration as a way to reduce the population.

For your reference, all three editions are listed below: 1., the re-created and most accurate edition, 2., the re-created edition that currently has the widest circulation, and 3., the actual, original, Jaffe Memo table.